Developmental Progress

Over the past couple of months, Mason has made some pretty big strides in the developmental department. He seems to be learning so fast right now!

For a while, we were all worried about his speech progress. Over the past couple of months he has picked up and is using lots of different words. I will try my best to give you a sample of his vocabulary: ma-ma, da-da, ba-ba, boo-boo, uh-oh, bye-bye, up, off, on, there, row, Dora (he loves the cartoon), knee, ball, dog, yeah, no-no, oh, school, turtle, and fishy. He loves to try and repeat what we are saying and it seems to be how he is picking up so many words so quickly. He latest attempts are with the words clock and truck.

Over Thanksgiving, Mason's Grandma and Grandpa gave him some animal magnets. He absolutely loves them and is able to identify almost all of them when asked to find them. He has also learned how to make the animal sounds for cow, dog, cat, monkey, sheep, and lion. We can't believe how quickly he was able to learn all of this. The magnets have made all the difference for him. I think we will be trying to find magnets for colors, numbers and letters in the future.

We have also been working on identifying body parts with him. When asked, he will point to his head, nose (he even sticks his finger up his nose for smiles), ears, mouth, belly, knee, and foot. We are also working on him becoming more aware of his g-button and he will occasionally point to it.

Physically Mason is progressing, and we are hoping that he will be walking within a couple of months. He is still cruising everywhere and crawling really well. Over the past few days we have seen him take more risks and let go so that he is standing on his own for 5 to 10 seconds. He prefers to do this only when we are not looking :) Mentally he is ready to walk, but his core strength is not quite there yet. He had 6 abdominal surgeries, his chest was opened for heart surgery, and there is a large patch that is holding his abdominal muscles together. It will take some time for him to develop that muscle strength. He also had brain bleeds when on ECMO that bled directly into his brain tissue in the motor function area and for the next while will still be "on the bubble" when it comes to a mild cerebral palsy diagnosis. We are still so proud of all of the physical obstacles he has overcome to even get where he is now. It has been no small feat for sure!

Mason is learning to walk now with the help of a walker, both at home and at PT. I will post some pictures soon. He is having trouble learning to walk with regular push toys because he "folds" over pretty easily and ends up leaning really far forward. We think he feels pretty unstable and will usually walk the toy on his knees instead. With the walker, he is able to use his arms to hold his trunk upright and keep his feet underneath him. He is not a huge fan of the walker right now, but hopefully in a couple of weeks he will be using it to walk the halls of his school. Once he gains enough core strength to balance, the hope is that he will be able to start walking unassisted.